Inglorious History: America and Indigenous Communities (Ep. 57)

Taking a page from other countries, the United States is moving toward establishing a Native American Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the hope that reconciliation begins when the survivors are heard.   It looks as if the United States is going to begin to come to terms with the dark legacy of the Indian Boarding Schools. On May 11, 2022, the U.S. Department of Interior released volume one of an investigative report on the history and legacy of these schools, which existed to force Native American children to break with their Native communities and traditions and assimilate into the dominant white culture as quickly as possible and as forcibly as necessary. The 102-page report makes for grim and chilling reading: violence, malnutrition, beatings, sexual abuse, solitary confinement, untreated diseases, unreported deaths, and disappearances.